On 6/18/26 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:
What did you watch?
Over the past few days, I've watched one pretty good movie, and several
poor movies on Tubi.
The good movie:
Underworld: Blood Wars (Hulu) - I still had never seen the fifth and
final film in the "Underworld" film series, 2016's "Blood Wars", despite wanting to see it badly. Well, it finally appeared on a streamer I have
(Hulu) - and apparently it was streamed in glorious 4k(!! though I'm not
sure I could tell - these movies are filmed kind of "grainy" by their
nature anyway...)
The entire "Underworld" film series is pretty underwhelming - the
original was sort of groundbreaking, but always seemed "less than the
sum of its parts" somehow. But the original film is still leagues better
than the films that followed. I dislike the sequel quite a bit. The
third film, which is a prequel, plays like it's almost unrelated to the
first two, not even including Kate Beckinsale (they sub in Rhona Mitra
as the female lead in the prequel). And the fourth film is pretty much a
mess - almost fully rebooting, with just Beckinsale returning, but with
Theo James and Charles Dance being brought in to effectively replace
Scott Speedman and Bill Nighy, respectively. The only thing I kind of
like about the fourth film is India Eisley.
Well, I am pleased to report that I found "Blood Wars" to the best
film in the series after the original film. Now, to a large extent, that
may be because the final film more closely copies the layout (and the
filming style) of the original film, focusing more on the vampires than
the annoying "lycans" (the mistakes films 2-4 make!). But it basically
works in making this one better than films #2-4.
So I actually rather enjoyed "Blood Wars" (despite Beckinsale
starting to show her age by this film). If you like the "Underworld"
series, but haven't seen this one, IJB says "Check it out!"
Meanwhile, I have recently watched 3 low-budget flicks on Tubi, that
were all varying degrees of disappointment:
Prank Night - A low-budget (IMDb says this was filmed in 17 days - I
believe it!!) 2026 Canadian horror-thriller. I originally watched this
because I saw that Katharine Isabelle - who after 2 decades of looking preternaturally younger than she is! is finally starting to look her
age! - was in the cast. Unfortunately, Isabelle's character is dead
within about 10-15 minutes of the film's open.
Indeed, that sets up the premise - some kind of self-defense(?)
college girlie (Katherine Evans, who is less than convincing as a
fightin' girlie "bad ass" than, say, Ana de Armas(!) ;p - is launched
on a path of Revenge! REVENGE! when a psychopath and his entourage home
invade the girl's home when she is out, killing her stepmom (Isabelle)
and shooting her father (Patrick Creery) in the head.
I basically thought this was a mess, despite liking some of the
actors (e.g. Isabelle, Hailey Foss, Zoe Marlett) in this - for one
thing, it's paced badly: it spends way too much time on the psychopath,
way too little time on self-defense girlie's revenge plot, and after
having her go on a somewhat successful revenge spree then has her wilt
and fold against the psychopath in the final part third act - what a disappointment and a misfire! This film was generally lacking in
suspense too much. And then the final sequence goes ridiculously over
this top (what is this? a "Halloween" flick?!).
This could have been a lot better than it was. But it's not.
Karma: Death at Latigo Springs - A low-budget 2024 mystery-thriller
which has a much better cast (e.g. Tony Todd, Natasha Henstridge, David Lipper, Eddie McClintock) than it deserves. I am not one who fixates on
the problem of "nepo babies" much, but this film is 100% a "nepo baby" creation.
Directed and produced by Elizabeth Blake-Thomas, it is written and produced by young actress Isabella Blake-Thomas (I am going to go out on
a limb and guess that Elizabeth Blake-Thomas is her mommy!). As such,
this is a film that likely shouldn't have been made. It sports a thin "mystery" (the disappearance (or murder?) of a friend of the girl's late
mommy 20 years prior), and then throws the kitchen sink at it (psychic visions, extraneous lesbian subplot, a character who does a complete
(and unearned!) 180 when revealed to be the killer! etc.). Worse, this
film is even more lacking in suspense and urgency than "Prank Night".
Avoid this one folks!!
Remotely Famous - A low-budget 2025 Aussie... "survival"(?) film.
Directed, written and produced by Brad Newland (who costars as
"Outback Dale"!!), about the best thing I can say about this is that the
lead actress, Sascha Turich, is very attractive bordering on beautiful.
(This also sports a token <s>American</s> Canadian actress, Daniela
Barbosa, playing Turich's whiny bestie!)
About the only other thing I can say about this is that the Outback
flies are real! (Pretty much every outdoor shot has the actors dealing
with flies on their faces!)
Anyway, Turich plays a foolish, stubborn young Aussie woman who is overshadowed by her YouTubing(?) older brother (Outback Dale! who posts
videos about the wonders of the Outback's flora and fauna) who decides
to drag her bestie along on a road trip to the northwest coast of
desolate Western Australia to show she's a strong as brother Dale.
Of course, the idiot drags the bestie to a place she's warned off
trying to get to, and gets stuck 75km in the deep outback with a
broken-down vehicle and no means of communication. So stubborn young
woman and whiny bestie have to survive days (which turns into weeks!) in
the Outback on their own.
This could have been interesting, but outside of casting the lovely
Turich in the lead, this film doesn't do much else right, with the prime
sin again being a lack of urgency or suspense in the proceedings, and
issues with proper tone (really - a budding pet dingo?!?!...).
This one is definitely skippable, unless you are willing to invest
almost 2 hours(! yes, this is YA low-budget film that's also overlone!)
in ogling Turich.
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